Your guide to spotting sketchy S.F. neighborhoods

Just what we needed: “a crowdsourced navigation app that shows the relative sketchiness of an area.”

At least that’s what the developers of SketchFactor, a brand new iPhone app, thought — before howls of criticism poured in. ”A platform for privileged yuppies to air their petty biases or, worse, avoid minorities entirely,” was one example in the Washington Post.

Launched last Friday, the app (Android version to come) ranks neighborhoods on a sketchiness scale if 1 -5, based on user reports, for example, in San Francisco, of “homeless man confronts a group of bystanders,” and “short man in silver outfit running up Polk by Ellis.” (The latter ranked a SketchFactor 2, for “weird”.)

homeless crackheads” and “aggressive street youths.” You dowload the app, type in your city and up a map comes with rankings pinpointed.

No, no, insist the developers. “It’s kind of like your best friend telling you where to go (cool, weird sculpture) and where to avoid (empty parking lot). A SketchFactor: 1 might be kind of quirky, a SketchFactor: 5 could be dangerous.”

Other news and views that caught my eye this morning.

Equal pay for me but not for… Democrats, the latter day champions of civil rights, pay their African American campaign workers 70 cents an hour compared $1 paid to their white counterparts. Sixty-eight cents on the dollar for Latinos.

A real kick in the pants

That, according to studies perused by the Daily Beast, is often because they’re pigeonholed into “minority outreach” tasks, unlike media, polling and data where the real campaign money is spent.

Minority-owned campaign firms aren’t doing any better: less than 2 percent of Democratic campaign committee spending went to minority firms in the most recent election cycles.

“There’s a presumption that minorities can’t manage ‘white’ issues. There’s a presumption that white voters won’t like to see a black press secretary, or that white voters won’t want to see an African-American or Latino political director,” a Democratic operative told the Daily Beast. “There’s just a general prejudice factor.”

Not getting what you pay for. Provocative headline from the Harvard Business Review: “Venture Capitalists Get Well Paid to Lose Money.”

It points to industry performance data that shows ” venture capital continues to underperform the S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell 2000.” Meaning investors in venture capital funds,with their high fees, are getting less bang for their buck than with standard public equities.

Water, water everywhere… That is, bottled water, much of which is coming from drought-ravaged California.

Unclear on the concept

Sure, agriculture, food and beverage consume much more of California’s water, but, as Mother Jones asks, “Why are Americans across the country drinking bottled water from drought-ridden California?”

Two answers: 1. Because here’s where major bottled water companies like Crystal Geyser, Arrowhead, Dasani and Aquafina are getting it from. 2. California has no groundwater regulation; you find it, it’s yours.

One other: Despite the dubious benefits of bottled water, not to mention its true origins and environmental footprint, consumer demand keeps going up (10 billion gallons sold in 2012).